Kirov Saga: Darkest Hour: Altered States - Volume II (Kirov Series) (15 page)

“They
say it is a battleship, enormous,” said the Lieutenant of Signals. “And this
message is directed to the Secretary General.”

“Oh?”
The Commandant was justifiably curious as he took the message in hand and read
it slowly. “What nonsense is this? You say Murmansk has been speaking with an Admiral
aboard that ship? They say it is not ours? Could it be from the Black Sea, a
ship defecting from Orenburg? And who is this Fedorov the message indicates?”

“We
don’t know, sir. It is very confusing. If this ship has come from Orenburg, we
would be wise to follow up on this. It may also be a diplomatic overture.”

The
Commandant frowned, shaking his head, with half a mind to tear the message up
and simply throw it in the trash bin. A man named Fedorov wanted to speak with
Sergei Kirov! Someone he had met in 1908? Could this man be an ambassador? He
mused on it for a moment longer, then did the most expedient and careful thing.

“Very
well, send it to the Kremlin main office of the General Secretary, and then let
them sort it out.” The Commandant would not be the man fingered should any
trouble arise from this. He simply passed the news on and then forgot about it.

Later
that same day he was quite surprise when the Lieutenant rushed in again with
even more news. “We must alert the General Secretary’s security detachment at
once, Commandant!”

“What
is this all about, Lieutenant?”

“Kirov,
sir. They say that is the name of that ship I reported on
earlier this morning. And not only that, the Secretary General himself is
making ready to leave for the airport. I am told he is flying north to Murmansk
today, and we are to provide for all the security arrangements.”

“Today?”
The Commandant’s face reddened, eyes widening and looking this way and that, as
if to find everything he would need to assure security. The air force must be
notified. Fighter squadrons must be alerted all along the intended flight path,
men must be waiting at the other end, trusted men from the GRU, and base
security must be heavily reinforced—and all this had to be done quickly and as
quietly as possible.

Sergei
Kirov was an impulsive man, he knew. The General Secretary had once received a
message that there had been an air raid at Perm and flew there himself that
very day to see to the organization of the ground defenses there in the event
the Grey Legion was planning an offensive. He was impetuous, with ceaseless
energy, and it was just like him to do something like this on the spur of the
moment.

The
Commandant would be a very busy man that day.

Chapter 14

June 24, 1940

They
would meet near the first stone building ever constructed
in the city of Murmansk, a stately red brick walled structure with tall
concrete exterior columns and two high arched windows flanking the heavy wood
door, framed in bright white paint. It sat adjacent to the rail yard on Lenin
Street, at the edge of the harbor where Admiral Volsky’s launch was tied off.
Just a short distance beyond the broad rail receiving yard, they caught sight
of the old Hotel Arctic, built in 1933. They were told that quarters had been
arranged there, and a reception was planned at the main dining hall.

The men
who received them at the quay when they arrived were military police, and they
eyed Sergeant Troyak and Corporal Zykov darkly when they saw the burly Sergeant
emerge from the cabin of the launch. He snapped off a crisp salute, which was
then returned, and something about this time honored gesture of good will and perhaps
the red hammer and sickle flag Volsky had retrieved from his sea chest and
fixed atop the boat, seemed to defrost that the situation. When Volsky appeared
in the uniform of a naval Admiral, the security men stiffened at attention,
affording him the respect the uniform and rank was due, even if they did not
know anything of the man who wore it.

“Right
this way, Admiral.” A tall man in a dark trench coat gestured to a waiting line
of cars, and there was room in the vehicle for the entire party.

They
could have easily walked to the meeting site that had been arranged. Volsky had
suggested the location in communications exchanged with the City Commandant
before the meeting. He knew of the old hotel, as his father had often spoken of
the place. They drove through the familiar intersection known as “Five Corners”
and arrived at the hotel just minutes later. Volsky looked around and noted the
absence of the statue that would commemorate Gunner Andre Bredov, who gallantly
defended his position and then blew himself up when surrounded by Nazi soldiers
when they tried to storm Murmansk during their Operation Silver Fox.

Not
yet, Anrdre, he thought. That was in 1944. I used to have lunch there in the
grounds near the place where they will erect that statue, assuming Bredov was
still out there somewhere and was destined meet the same fate. The monument to
the victims of political repression was missing as well. The town was
dramatically different, with none of the tall brick and concrete buildings, and
almost no vehicular traffic on the broad empty streets. There were many more
buildings of wood, some using the unhewn trunks of pine trees to construct log
cabins.

After a
brief security check, and profuse apology for the necessity, they were ushered
into the lobby, where Troyak and Zykov would wait, served hot tea and cakes. They
had instructions to contact the ship using the hidden radio in the lining of
Troyak’s service jacket. A full contingent of well armed Naval Marines was
ready on board
Kirov
, with the KA-40 loaded for bear. The Admiral did
not think it would be necessary to call on them, but the uncertainty inherent
in the situation prompted him to arrange for his extraction should he not
contact the ship within 24 hours. All the men had hidden transceivers and could
be easily located.

 Volsky
and Fedorov were then led off to the meeting room, flanked by four guards in
the same dark trench coats, and they saw more security men at intervals along
the long hallway. Doors were dutifully opened at the end by two more guards,
and they were let into a spacious room, with an elegant crystal chandelier
above a table dressed out with candles, oil lamps, and white linen. Tea service
was waiting, and they were quietly attended by white coated hotel staff while
they waited.

Ten
minutes later a door opened and two men stepped in, taking up positions to
either side of the entrance. The next man they saw seemed like a demigod
walking out of the mists of time itself—Sergei Kirov. His stocky frame, broad
face, ruddy features were unmistakable to any Russian, as they had been
depicted in statues, postage stamps, posters and artwork for decades after his
assassination in 1934… But that had never happened in this world. Stalin had
died in Kirov’s place.

The
tallest guard, clearly a favored adjutant, announced the arrival in a clear
voice. “The Secretary General of the Communist Party!”

Kirov
looked at them as they stood in respectful greeting, both men removing their
caps as though they were in the presence of a saint. Volsky saw the light of
awe and respect in Fedorov’s eyes, and noted how Kirov stared at him, an equal
light of amazement plain in his expression. Then he smiled.

“All
security personnel will leave the room at once,” he said, still standing by the
door. The men obeyed, though their officer’s face betrayed some concern. Volsky
noted a small hand gesture by Kirov, reassuring the man that all would be well.
Then Kirov stepped forward and extended his hand to the Admiral in a warm
greeting, yet his eyes were ever on Fedorov, glittering with silent
realization.

A man
of just 54 years, Kirov seemed in the fullness of his life, with just a touch
of grey starting to appear in his thick head of hair, combed back above his
broad forehead. A handsome man, he exuded an energy of confidence and
authority.

“Admiral
Volsky,” he said smiling. “I must admit that we have no Admiral by that name
here in Soviet Russia, and so imagine my surprise when I was invited to this
meeting. And you… He turned to Fedorov, his eyes strangely distant, as though
he were seeing back through the years to that moment when he had first laid
eyes on this man outside the dining hall of the inn at Ilanskiy. “You are
Fedorov, and if you can assure me that you are not working for the Okhrana, I
would be happy to share my breakfast with you!”

Fedorov
smiled. “Sergei Mironovich Kostrikov,” he said warmly. “I am honored to make
your acquaintance again, after so many long years.”

“Not
for you, Fedorov! You appear exactly as I have remembered you all these many
years, even as I remembered every word you whispered to me on that stairway
before I went down. Imagine my surprise when I received your message—a message
only I could understand, and so I hastened here to this meeting, unwilling to
believe it might be the same man I spoke to back then… in 1908. Ah, but it
wasn’t 1908 when we parted, was it Fedorov? It was 1942! Yes, I found that out
as well. Yet every step I took down those stairs gobbled up two years! I
counted them—seventeen steps, a nice prime number. When I got to the bottom all
was as I expected, but I must tell you that the room where we spoke that day on
the upper floor was not in the same world I left. Yes, I know that now.”

He
gestured to the table and they all took seats, with Kirov sitting opposite his
visitors. Now he looked at Admiral Volsky. “I did not see your ship in the
harbor, Admiral, though they tell me you have given it a familiar name.”

“We
have, sir,” said Volsky.

“Well,
when I first heard of this ship I came to believe you had come here from the
Black Sea, sent by Volkov in a warship built by the Orenburg Federation, though
that seemed surprising to me. We saw no sign of this at Sevastopol or any other
port on the Black Sea, and we still control Odessa and the shipyards there.”

“No,
General Secretary.”

“You need
not be so formal. Just call me Mironov, for old time’s sake. That is who I was
when I first met this man. Then he told me he was just a sailor being
transferred, but I had my own suspicions about him.”

“Very
well, Mironov, I must be forthright and tell you we have not come from the
Black Sea, nor are we in any way affiliated with Orenburg.”

“Oh?
Then where have you come from? Surely not from the far east, unless you’ve
managed to Shanghai a Japanese warship and sail it all this way as a prize.”

Volsky
smiled. “In fact, we have come from there, but not in a Japanese ship.”

“I
see…” Kirov thought for a moment, then leaned forward, lowering his voice to an
almost conspiratorial tone. “I can see you hesitate to say more, Admiral. You
must think that to do so would be too much for me to comprehend. Perhaps it
would be so, but…” now he looked at Fedorov. “I am a very curious man, you see.
So curious that I must tell you I took more than one trip up that stairway at
Ilanskiy. Some of the things I saw and learned were quite shocking, and I think
you know of what I am speaking.”

“You
went back up those stairs?” Fedorov’s eyes registered surprise and just a touch
of fear.

“I know
you told me to get as far away from that place as I could, and never come up
those stairs again, Fedorov, but that is one bit of advice that I’m afraid I
did not take. It wasn’t until I did go back up that stairway that I finally
realized what you meant with that other bit of advice you gave me, that whisper
in my ear as we parted. Yes, I learned more than any man should ever have to
know—the very day, time and moment of my death! But as you see, I have avoided
that fate. You wanted that, did you not? Yes, you did. Well then let me shake
your hand one more time, Fedorov, and give you my thanks. Because of you the
man that would arrange that unfortunate business scheduled for December of 1934
was not in the world to do so.”

“Because
of me?” Fedorov had a guilty look.

“Only
in part,” said Mironov. “The rest was my hand writing in the ledger of fate. It
was I who made an end of Josef Stalin. Having seen the world that resulted from
his reign of terror, no sane man could do anything else. Yes, I went to Bayil
when I found out the Okhrana had him there. It was risky, the most dangerous
thing I ever did in my life. I gave myself even odds of living out that night,
but I gave Stalin worse.”

Fedorov
was shocked to hear this. “You killed Stalin?”

“I did.
And thank god for that. Unfortunately I have not been as willing to cut off
heads as he might have been, and so the effort to unify the country became
mired in this endless civil war. I suppose I saved millions of lives by taking Stalin’s,
but now we have this damnable war. On the one side we sit watching the Polish
border for any sign of the German buildup there that is almost certain to come.
On the other we remain locked in this perpetual civil war with the Whites—with
Volkov’s Orenburg Federation as he has come to call it these days.”

“It
appears Time and Fate have a way of balancing their books,” said Volsky.

“Very
true, Admiral. I must ask you one thing now, though I believe I may already
know the answer. When I met you in 1908, Fedorov, you were not born to that
world. Am I correct?”